As the year went on we kept hearing about teacher cuts. Students feared that it was going to be their mother or father or their favorite teacher, teachers feared it was going to be them, and families thought they were going to be losing the great teachers that are the foundation of the district.
As time went on, we as students and community members heard that we would be losing 38 teachers in our school district. Teachers that students once had, teachers that our parents had, teachers we see every day in the halls will be losing their jobs, losing what they worked for. As the board members discussed this, the community members grew angry because we are losing many teachers that we don’t need to be losing.
The board agreed that they would cut 28 instead, not a number that looks very kind. Fourteen teachers are retiring or doing something else and the other 14 are being cut. We are losing 14 fellow community members to our schools that have helped our children learn and have done more than just teach the children of the North Kitsap School District.
“That sucks!” Jenna Johnson a senior at Kingston High says. “We are losing some really good teachers. I know it’s based mostly on sonority and that really sucks because some of the teachers that have been here for just a few years have done a lot for the students. As we lose more teachers our classes will keep getting bigger and our students would be losing the chance to learn more.”
We already have a problem with our students not paying attention and just adding more kids into classes already with 20 students or more will just make it harder for students to learn.
With all the re-modeling we did to North Kitsap High School and building another high school, Kingston High School, we can’t come up with the money to keep our teachers with their jobs? Our community did need another school for the students to go to, there was just not enough room at North Kitsap to hold 2,000 or more students. North Kitsap did need a little re-modeling so the school would not fall apart.
But where is the support to keep teachers in classrooms?
